In That Moment (The Power)
by thenerdyturtle
Summary: Q's 17-year-old son now has a neighbor girl of his own, but they have a very different relationship. See what happens on one dark and stormy night... First fic, please review! (Also, I haven't picked names for them yet, but I'll get to that eventually.)
1. Chapter 1

He saw her. Well, he didn't really see her. But he knew she was there.

"What just happened?" she asked.

"The power went out, stupid," he replied, slowly making his way down the basement stairs. "What are you doing down here anyway? Getting something for that stupid garden of yours?"

"It's not stupid. It's art."

"Yeah. Sure. Remind me when some strategically planted daises started counting as art."

She sighed and rolled her eyes. "I wouldn't expect you to understand." She slid down the wall she was leaning on, plopping down on the cold concrete. "I guess I'll just sit here till it comes back on. No use in going anywhere in a storm like this."

She managed to project her voice towards him in the darkness. The room was still. All that could be heard was the soft hum of the water heater and the rain drops beating against the back door.

"Sure. Go ahead. Make yourself at home. You've already invited yourself in. You know, you're lucky my Mom's so nice to you."

"Great lady. Further proves my point that you're adopted."

He dryly replied, "Haha, very funny. You, madam, are hilarious."

"Thank you."

He sat himself down against the bottom step of the stairs, presumably across from her.

"So…what are you looking for anyway?"

"Hmm. Just starting to make conversation, eh? Why do you care?"

"Curious, neighbor. You're stuck here. Might as well keep you company, as charming and helpful as I am."

"Hmph. Well…um…it's nothing."

"Well now I definitely know it's something." He gave a small laugh.

She shifted in her spot without a word.

"Come on, tell me."

"Yeah right, you'll laugh."

"Now, miss, when have I ever been known to laugh at you?"

"Oh I don't know. Maybe since I was six and I moved next door? Remember that, genius?"

He cracked a smile that she couldn't see. "Yeah. I do."

They sat in a moment of silence.

"Well if you must know, I was looking for…um…some petunia seeds."

"Petunia seeds?"

"Yeah. Petunia seeds. I was just um…gonna make a…uh…a bigger arrangement. Not just stripes and hearts anymore. Like faces and pictures. You know like those arrangements at Disney World."

He was silent. Then, through stifled laughter, he said, "Wait, seriously? Wow this is a new level of weird, even for you!"

He burst into laughter and she crossed her arms.

"Look at you, Miss Garden Artist! Should we paint some spades on you and have you sing? That is some serious Alice and Wonderland shit right there!" He couldn't stop laughing.

She spoke up, "'Oh no I'm not gonna laugh'. You know what, if I could find your stupid face I'd slap you."

His laughter died down. He felt the silence thickening between them. "Look, I'm sorry, okay?"

"No you aren't." she rebuffed.

"What if I am?"

"You're not, because you hate me. And you always have," she said. "Since I moved in next door. I was six - a child - and you decided to make my life miserable from the first day we met. You really are something, you know? A total idiot. You take one look at the girl you'll be seeing every day for the next decade and you decide she's your mortal enemy. What did I ever do to you?"

There was a moment of silence as she ended her outburst and he held his head down, fiddling with his jacket zipper.

"You have no idea what you do to me," he muttered, barely audible.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"What?"

"NOTHING," he says, exhasperated.

"Ugh. You really are unbelievable, you know."

"Hey it's not like you were ever Miss Sweetness!"

"What the hell are you talking about?" she said, her tone angry.

"You're a pain."

"You're crazy! I'm not the problem here, you are!" she yelled.

He inched closer to her, tugging at his hair in aggravation.

"You- you're just- so – so – FRUSTRATING!"

"Frustrating? FRUSTRATING? How the hell am I frustrating? I'm the one who has to defend myself every time you say a word to me."

"Yeah – well. You know what?" His voice softened. "Maybe that's just it!"

She was still seething and now confused. "What's it?"

"The words. I'm not good with the words." He sat back against the wall. "And you. You're just so – so – difficult. I can't talk to you. I've never been able to talk to you. Not when we were six and not now. I just…can't. And you have no idea how hard you make it. I see you and all I can do is act like an idiot. When all I really wanna say is that I think you're…amazing. Your passion and your spirit. The way you treat your little brother and my mom and the janitors at school. The way you quip back at me. The way your hair looks when it's tied up. The way you stick your tongue out when you're gardening. And your smile. Especially your smile. I loved it when you were missing baby teeth, I loved it when you had braces, and I love it now." He looked up, realizing that he had been rambling on. He shook his head. "But I can't say any of that when I see you. And I've hated myself for it for 11 damn years. I guess it took a power outage to tell you, because at least now I can't see you." He paused. "I'm sorry. I am so sorry. For all of it. Everything." He put his head in his hands. A minute went by.

Suddenly, he felt her knee on his outstretched leg. She was crawling toward him, slowly, shakily. She looked up suddenly and her face was a foot away from his. He could hear her breathing.

"What are you doing?" he asked, not moving.

"Just sit still," she said softly.

She tucked her legs beneath herself, sitting next to his left leg. She slowly reached out to hold his face in her hands. She brushed her fingers along his jaw. She was leaning in slowly. Both their hearts were beating fast, his chest rising and falling. As she got closer, they could feel each other's breath on their chins. They were inches away now. Seconds passed, but to them it felt like minutes or hours, or even days.

I can see his eyes, she thought. She couldn't actually see them, but she knew they were there, looking at her intently, big and crystal blue. Amazing.

They kept getting closer, until the tips of their noses barely brushed.

And it was in that exact moment that the power came back on.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey fanfictioners. So I named my characters (Josh and Mel) and I wrote some more for them. Their next step kinda happens in two parts, so I'm making them two chapters. But I didn't make you wait for the third chapter! Oh, and I would love to hear from you! Drop me a review :)**

 **Happy reading! DFTBA**

The abrupt ringing of the bell jarred him out of his thoughts. Josh had spent the last hour staring out the window, paying no attention to the Calculus lesson of the day. As much as he _loved_ calculus, he had far more important things to occupy his mind with. Namely, the events of last night. The weirdest things always did seem to happen to him when he least expected it. Like the day someone left him an old paper map of New York in his locker. Or the time he got an anonymous birthday card, signed only with a blue "M".

But last night something extraordinary happened. Something he didn't think would ever happen.

On one dark and stormy night, he finally told a girl how he felt about her. And not just any girl. Mel Parrish, the only girl he had ever really fallen in love with, and the one girl he always pushed away. That is until last night, when he let out what he had to say, and made her aware of exactly why he had been such an asshole all this time. And what happened after that was what Joshua Jacobsen had been pondering for the last hour, and every spare moment before that.

The lights came on and the small air conditioner sputtered back to life. Mel sat in shock realizing what she had been about to do. She had been centimeters - no, millimeters - from kissing Josh. Now, with the light of the fluorescent lamps above her lighting the basement, she saw Josh. His dark hair fell gently over his forehead and his mouth was slightly open in a blank expression. His face was still in her hands and his piercing blue eyes were opened as wide as hers. It seemed he was thinking the same thing she was: OH. MY. GOD.

For what seemed like forever, she just sat staring at him. She was looking directly into his eyes now, having pulled back only a little when the light startled her. They were both breathing heavily, too afraid to move. And before either could break the silence, Mel was out the basement door and running across wet grass to her house, only a few yards away.  
Everything in Josh wanted to beg her to stay as she ran. But his body stayed frozen, as if it just wanted to stay that way.

He stayed there for a while longer, on the floor, in the same position. After almost an hour, he went upstairs to his bedroom, where he crawled into bed.

He did not sleep that night. He only stared at his window, which was wet and foggy from the long Sunday rainstorm. And for the first time in what seemed like forever, it did not let him see the window of the girl next door.

And she saw the same the same thing on her side, only a few yards away.


	3. Chapter 3

**Yay lovey fics :)**

Josh walked out of Calculus and into the crowded hallway, making his way to the courtyard for lunch. His mind was far from math or school or even the Italian sandwich in his bag. He was still daydreaming, and didn't realize who was also in the courtyard.

Mel sat on a bench, paging through her chemistry book. He stopped five feet away from her, just looking at her. After a second she looked up from her book and made contact with his eyes.

"Hi," he said. It was the only thing he could say. And all he could do was shove his hands in his jacket pockets and stare at his shoes.

"Yeah. Hi," she replied, looking away. She gathered her things and stood up now, mirroring his stance and still avoiding his eyes.

"Can we talk?" asked Josh.

"No. No, we can't," she said in a stony voice. "I'll be late for Chem."

"It's lunch period."

"Yeah...well...look I really don't want to talk to you right now, okay?" She was obviously angry about something.

"Please I just wanna talk about..."

"Yeah. I know. Whatever. I have to go. That's is not something I wanna talk about. We should just forget about it."

She started to stomp off. She made it more than ten feet away from him when he finally called out in bewilderment and slight frustration, "What's your problem now? You almost kissed me, remember? Why are hell are you angry?"

"BECAUSE THAT WASN'T SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN."

He froze.

She marched back towards him, and yelled, "You wanna know why I'm angry? Because that. Wasn't. Supposed. To happen. I don't know what came over me last night. I didn't sleep at all. Because I was up thinking about you and the things you said and the stupid dark basement and how I almost kissed you and honestly it scares me."

She paused, taking a breath, and kept muttering more furious things that made Josh realize what she was saying.

After letting her ramble on for a bit, he spoke:

"What if it was supposed to happen?"

She stopped at this. He started taking slow steps toward her, locking his eyes on hers, approaching her like carefully but bravely, like the she was the edge of something very high up.

"Huh?" was the only thing she could say. She stood still, wide-eyed, staring back at him.

"What if it was supposed to happen?" he repeated slowly. He was asking, like a curious child, but he already knew the answer. He kept getting closer, speaking more confidently, yet gently. His eyes were saying something that she had never heard before. She could only stand there in silence and awe.

He continued, "I'm not gonna lie. I've been dreaming of what happened – or what almost happened – for a really long time, and I never thought it might actually happen. And yeah it's crazy, and maybe this is absolutely ridiculous. Look, the truth is, I'm scared too. I am scared of the way I feel about you. The way I've felt about you for all this time. And if you're scared the way that I'm scared then maybe what happened last night needed to happen. Maybe I needed to tell you all of that. Maybe you're scared for the same exact reason I am. And if you are, and you feel about me the same way I feel about you, then maybe what almost happened last night was supposed to happen."

She was frozen, terrified and exhilarated at once, staring at him, unable to speak.

He was inches away from her, closing the distance between them just as she had, less than a day before. He stepped closer, yet she refused to move. He kept his eyes on her, lowering them a few times.

Then he placed his soft hands on her, holding her face gently. The touch made every nerve in her body fire in a wave of chills. Her eyelids fluttered. She was breathing hard, but she didn't stop him or move at all.

With his face centimeters away now, he whispered, "What if it _was_ supposed to happen?"

"I-"

Before she could get a word out, Josh kissed her.

He kissed her.

He pulled her to him, locking his lips with hers. He brushed her cheek with his thumb, savoring every sensation he could at this moment.

Mel was shocked, not moving, only breathing gently.

After what felt like several sunlit days, she dropped everything she was carrying and slowly moved her hands up and held on to his strong arms. A millisecond later, everything changed.

She was kissing him back.

She put her hands on his sides and grasped the fabric of his jacket, standing on her tiptoes, moving her mouth against his. She deepened their kiss, embracing him, allowing more of her to touch him, to melt into him.

He threaded his fingers through her hair, holding on to her for dear life, keeping her close to him. They kissed more and more passionately, wordlessly agreeing that this was indeed supposed to happen.

Who knows how long they were there.

 **Hope you enjoyed! Leave me your comments, suggestions, and thoughts if it pleases you :) I have some ideas for the next steps, and i's definitely like to hear from you!**


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